Question about "faith"

[Belacqua]

Yes, as I stated above, I do have a set of beliefs.

My atheism is simply not being convinced of theist claims that gods exist.

I do have a set of beliefs, that lead me to my atheism. 

Thank you, we are in agreement about this.

You originally stated "my atheism will continue, as long as theists continue to fail to meet their burden of proof to support their claims that a god exists." A surprising number of people on this forum seem to think that when they say someone has failed to meet a burden of proof, there is no reason to give any explanation of why that's so, or what standards they use to make the judgment. As if it should be self-evident even to people who are unaware of any criteria for evaluating claims. 

If I were going to write a similar sentence, I might add a little for extra clarity, to avoid certain misunderstandings that others have made. I'd say something like: "my atheism will continue, as long as theists continue to fail to meet their burden of proof according to the criteria I used to evaluate their claims." Naturally, they think they have met a burden of proof, which we disagree with, so the subject turns into how we demonstrate or dispute the truth of our statements, and not some one-sided judgment passing that gives the impression that our own standards are somehow eternal, indisputable, and obvious to everyone.

The standards of judgment you list in your post all seem very reasonable to me.

If you are reading some of the less reasonable opinions on this forum, you'll see that people sometimes announce that they don't have to have any standards of judgment when they reject the claims of religious people. They just do. Or that if they have standards of judgment, these are just absolutely obvious and need no explanation or defense. I've seen people announce that their atheism is exactly the same as the atheism of a newborn baby or a ham sandwich, rather than a considered position based on standards of judgment.

So I thank you for taking the time to explain your criteria.